


ragtag misfits

by mallory



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, F/M, Gen, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, hints of jake/amy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 14:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14695794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mallory/pseuds/mallory
Summary: They’re not criminals, per se… Okay, well, they are. But think of it like this: they pick up where the law leaves off. And look good doing it.“Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys.”—Nathan Ford,Leverage.





	ragtag misfits

**Author's Note:**

> Writing in the omniscient perspective for the first time so I hope it isn’t jarring to read. Let’s suspend any disbelief you may hold about the practicality of the heist and the validity of the technobabble because I am no professional anything.
> 
> I’ve had this on my computer for two years and though it’s incomplete, I thought I’d share it anyway in light of recent events regarding the network swap. (Honestly not surprised by anything that’s happened; B99 should’ve been with NBC from the get go.)
> 
> Okay, enjoy.

> **Pembroke Mansion - 10:06PM**

Amy Santiago winks up at the camera perched in the corner end of the hallway and props a storage tube against a wall. She takes care to kneel in front of the locked door—one wrong move and she’ll flash the people watching through the feed.

 _Warren Pembroke is a prick_ , she thinks, yanking at the infuriatingly short skirt of her waitress uniform. She pulls on a pair of leather gloves from her apron pocket and tugs out a bobby pin hidden in her neat hair bun.

All week he’s been commenting about the “old Spanish touch” she’s given his house and if she weren’t on the job right now, she’d show him how _capable_ her hands are.

“What’s with the face?” a cheery voice crackles in her ear.

Amy jerks back and shoots a glare up at the camera. She’s not used to having voices inside her head while on the job. Especially not one as annoying as Jake Peralta’s.

Down the street from the mansion, in a grey van that promises great service by Smith and Sons electricians, Jake grins at his laptop screen, on which Amy makes a rude gesture up at one of the dozen security cameras he’s monitoring. “Aw, don’t be like that.”

Gina Linetti snickers and bites off another gummy worm, her feet on the table welded to the van. “Can’t the security guards see her?”

“Nah. I looped the feed of the hallway just before Santiago went up. Actually, I have almost all control over the electronics on the property. Check it.” Jake types something on his keyboard and the hallway lights flicker off just as Amy pushes open the door.

“Hey!” Amy casts another nasty look up at the camera. “ _This_ is why I work alone.”

Gina touches Jake’s shoulder. “I wish I was a tech genius like you, Jake.”

His chest puffs up. “Well, I’m sure you’ve got things you’re great at. Do you paint like Degas?”

“No, but I love to dance. It’s why this piece is special to me.”

A level below Amy, standing stoic amongst a crowd of people in the mansion’s foyer, Raymond Holt is squeezed into a suit and glancing down at his watch. “How long until the system resets?”

“Less than an hour.” Jake leans forward and zeroes in on the mansion’s foyer. “How ’bout giving us some smiles, Mr. and Mrs. Grumpy Face? You’re at a party; lighten up a little!”

Rosa Diaz leans against a marble column at the foot of the grand staircase, dressed to the nines in an elegant black gown—though her expression shows anything but poise. “How ’bout I don’t tell you how to do your job and you don’t tell me how to do mine.”

“Uh, hello, I’m carrying all the weight here.” (Here, Amy’s protests go ignored.) “I don’t even know what _you_ do.”

Ray heaves a sigh and touches Rosa’s elbow in an attempt to calm her down, or at least remind her where they are and why they’re here. “Listen. I know this working in a team is all new to you and trust is a new concept, but please focus on the job at hand.

“Santiago, are you in?”

Amy surveys the large office and turns on the desk lamp. “Affirmative. I only got five minutes in here yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance to scope it out properly.”

Rapid-fire clicks drift through the comms. “I’m pulling up the floor plans now,” Jake says. “It looks like there’s a hidden room behind the west wall of the room.”

She heads toward the wall-to-floor bookshelf and shines her flashlight over the dusty books, scrutinising each. _The Nip Slip Collection_ catches her eye—both because it’s disgusting and it’s the only book that isn’t covered in a thick layer of dust. Gagging to herself, she pulls on it and the bookshelf slides to the right. She grins as her eyes take in the secret room. “I’m in.”

“What do you see?” Ray asks.

“Lasers.” Thin red beams, criss-crossing in random directions. Two rotary laser levels on the north- and south-facing walls. She tracks the slow movements of the beams. It would be easy to slip around the lasers undetected, if not for the—“Heat sensor.” It’s attached to the wall where a light switch would be, and with the foot of space between the sensor and the first laser level, it wouldn’t be possible to cross the threshold without setting it off. “Looks like a Langley J-365.”

“A Langley J-series?” Jake rubs his eye. “They’re old school; I can’t hack those. And even if we find a way to turn them off, it has a building function that resets itself and turns back on after fifteen minutes. Rat bastard!”

Amy purses her lips, eyes tracking the laser patterns as her brain churns out an idea. “All right. I need aluminium foil, some ice and gum.” She bends low to gauge any other security measures in place, and growls when the ends of her skirt brushes her butt. “And some fucking pants.”

“On it.” Jake pushes away from the table, then frowns at Gina. “Wait, how do you tie a necktie?”

 

_**~ &~** _

 

“Detective Holt! I’m so glad you could make it.”

Back at the party, Ray forces a friendly smile onto his face as the man of the hour approaches. “Mr. Pembroke, you know I’m no longer with the NYPD. Which is why I’m surprised you invited me to your party.”

“It seems you’re no longer a lot of things.” Pembroke spares a leering glance toward Ray’s date. “After you rescued me from gunpoint last year, inviting you to the hottest party of the year makes us even.

“Who’s the candy on your arm?”

“Ah, yes. Mr. Pembroke, this is Carmen.”

Rosa—grinding her teeth so hard Amy feels it in her own molars—places her hand in Pembroke’s proffered one. “Good to meet you.”

(In the van, Gina watches Rosa’s stiff movements and hostile expression as Jake slinks out into the night and babbles on about the cover story for Carmen Garcia he created. She opens her mouth, like she’s about to say something, but instead takes a firm bite of another gummy.)

Pembroke, however, either doesn’t seem to notice Rosa’s less than affable demeanour or takes perverse pleasure in it, and lifts her hand to his lips and gives her a wink from under his brows. “Pleasure is mine.” Straightening, he turns back to Ray. “If I’m being honest, I had ulterior motives for inviting you here tonight. I want to offer you a job.”

Ray lifts a brow and feigns surprise. “Oh?”

“Yes. Despite what happened a month ago, your outstanding record speaks for itself. I want you as Head of Security at Pembroke Incorporated.”

“That is… awfully kind of you.”

Pembroke smiles and bows his head, as if agreeing with the sentiment.

As Ray begins to politely decline the offer, Jake adjusts his sloppily-made tie (that looks more like a shoelace knot) and climbs up the narrow staircase from the back of the mansion. He turns left on the second floor, passing a lavish living room that connects the two wings, to Pembroke’s home office at the end.

He knocks on the office door, holding a pair of black leggings, and aluminium foil and a glass of ice he picked up in the kitchen. He peeks over his shoulder to make sure no one’s spotted him and followed him up—and he’s yanked him inside the office where he narrowly avoids bumping his head against the edge of the door that’s barely widen enough for him to fit through.

“Careful!” he yelps. “Precious cargo here.”

Amy waves him off with the roll of her eyes.

He holds out the aluminium foil, but she reaches for the leggings instead and tugs them on. His eyes trail the length of her smooth legs as they’re quickly being eaten up by the cotton. She does a little shimmy and he swallows.

She blows a stray hair from her face and scowls. “What?”

Jake blinks away the slightly dazed expression clouding his face, shaking his head. “What? Nothing. What?”

“Whatever. Over here.” They stop just shy of the threshold and she fashions the foil into a cup, into which she pours some ice. “Gum?”

Jake’s jaw works quickly for the last traces of the watermelon flavour before he pulls it out from his mouth.

She crinkles her nose and instead gives him the makeshift cup. “Stick it over the heat sensor. On the left wall.”

“Ohh, smort. Cover it with ice so it can’t detect our body heat.”

She’s learned the pattern of movement from each laser level while waiting for Jake to arrive, and she moves smoothly into the room in a stealthy dance, contorting her body with the trajectory of the beams.

She bends over backward to avoid the lasers shifting down, and Jake almost drops the makeshift cup in his haste to look away. She’s donned the leggings but it does nothing to hide the nice shape of her butt.

“One down,” she murmurs, switching off one level. Half of the lasers gone, she moves more swiftly to the other side to clear the room.

Meanwhile, Jake fetches the storage tube Amy left on the large, bare wooden desk.

 _Someone’s overcompensating_ , he thinks.

About a dozen stolen paintings hang on the three surrounding walls and they’re both drawn toward the display of artworks like moths to a flame.

Amy’s eyes caress both the artworks and their frames like a lover would their partner. “Holy millionaire douchebag,” she says on a breath.

Gina tenses. “What is it?”

“He has quite a collection.” Her eyes catch on the geometric shapes and pale colours of one piece in particular. “Is that the _Le Pigeon Aux Petits Pois_?”

Standing by the adjacent wall, Jake grins to himself. _It_ looks _like it_.

“Is it there?” There’s an anxious hopefulness in Gina’s voice. “The _Four Dancers_?”

“Yes, I see it.” Edgar Degas’ _Four Dancers_. They’ve spent a week together doing reconn and planning tonight’s heist to steal it back for Gina, who claims to be a distant relative of the painter.

From the storage tube, Jake pulls out a convincing forgery that took him four days to prepare and complete.

Amy takes a closer look behind the painting. There sits a small device between the wall and frame, blinking a small red light. “You were right, Holt; they have pressure sensors.”

Jake tugs out his phone. “Thirteen minutes until the system resets and we get caught.”

Pembroke still has the pair cornered, droning on about his successful his company is doing. Ray nods along, scans the room and feigns an accidental nudge against Rosa.

“So what’s with the instruments?” Rosa cuts in, jerking her chin toward the middle of the foyer where a small stage is set up with various musical instruments. On the drum kit is printed _Fantastic Jack and the Junkyard Rats._

Pembroke breaks out into a grin. “That is a special treat for you lucky mofos.”

“Shame that we won’t be able to enjoy it.” Ray consults his watch. Twelve minutes, thirty-eight seconds. “I’m afraid we must be going soon.”

“Real shame,” Rosa monotones.

(Gina looks pained watching them through the security feed with a hand over her mouth.)

Pembroke frowns for a brief moment, but then perks right up. “If you’ll stay just a little longer”—He stretches his neck around the room and gestures to someone in the crowd—“I’ll speed things along. Excuse me.”

Jake looks down at his watch again. “How’d you know he was going to entertain tonight?”

Gina watches the security feed like a hawk, on the edge of her seat. She smirks. “Pembroke may be CEO of his dad’s business, but his true dream is being front and centre of an adoring crowd.”

“Good evening, friends,” Pembroke’s voice booms. The guests gather in and around the foyer as he stands on the stage, adjusting the guitar strap and smiling into his microphone. His bandmates each settle themselves behind their instruments. “I have a surprise performance from yours truly.”

There’s a scatter of applause sprinkled throughout the crowd. Most who have been subjected to the band’s performances in the past are visibly bracing themselves—and just in time, because Pembroke hammers on his guitar without warning. The band scrambles to catch up and an onslaught of raucous screeching blasts out of the speakers that flank the stage.

The walls and floorboards vibrate with the force of the instruments. The bass buzzes in quick staccato bursts through the second floor, disturbing the sensitive pressure sensors on the frames.

(The four security guards unlucky enough to be working tonight all wince as the ear-piercing sounds bleed down to the basement where they’re stationed. Jake left the cameras in the foyer, kitchen and living room alone, so Security watches as Pembroke throw ridiculous stunts on the stage.

The pressure sensor alarm goes off, but the Head of Security simply turns it off.)

Amy grins as the red light turns green.

“Now that is just noise,” Jake says.

In the chaos of the foyer, Ray and Rosa have no idea what is going on upstairs; the music is too loud for them to even think, let alone hear anything over the comms.

Pembroke wails in what he believes to be an attractive and impressive belt. Jake covers his ears and implores Amy with wide eyes to hurry. Or put him out of his misery.

Amy pulls out a small tool kit. “Do you think we can clear all of this out?” she asks, eyeing the room as she steadies a hand on the frame encasing the _Four Dancers_.

“There’s not enough time or storage tubes,” Gina insists.

Jake gauges his phone. Eleven minutes, thirty-six seconds. “There’s more than enough time.”

“If you’re just stealing the painting.” Gina’s hands clenched in her lap. “But the plan is to replace it with the forgery.”

“All right, all right. Chill. She’s doing it.” His ears prick at the sound of keys typing. “Hey, what are you doing?”

Gina’s hands pause over the keyboard. “Nothing. The screen went to sleep.”

Amy sighs, eyes caressing the dark lines shaping the heads and arms of the dancers over the red-orange and green colour scheme. “I don’t know why Degas was so against being called an Impressionist.” She pulls the painting from its frame. “Monet’s _Impression_ is one of my favourites. Distinctive brush strokes to capture fleeting moments, realistic depictions of light—”

“Okay, now is not the time for art history,” Jake says, exchanging the paintings with her.

“Jake, Amy!” Gina exclaims. “Security’s heading upstairs.”

“What’s going on?” Ray says, having caught the end of Gina’s warning after the abrupt end of the band’s first song.

Amy glances at her watch. “They’re twenty-three minutes early.” _What the hell?_ she thinks, a frown weighing on her features. They made their scheduled walk-throughs at 11:10PM on the dot every night this last week.

“We’re almost done.” Jake’s gaze stray to the entrance—and only exit. _Ten grand is so not worth it if we get caught_.

“But we can’t get out,” Amy says, her mind working for possible escape routes. They can’t get trapped inside; the lasers will reset, and there’s nowhere in the office to hide. The air vents are too small for her to fit through, and though she isn’t carrying her rig ( _Stupid Pembroke and his degrading uniforms._ ), if worst comes to worst she will have no choice but to push Jake out the window and jump out after him, hoping whatever they’d sprain or break wouldn’t impede their ability to run.

Ray gives a meaningful look to Rosa, who looks something akin to pleased for the first time tonight.

“I’m on it.” Rosa rolls her neck and a series of cracks break out and pushes her way through the crowd, leaving Ray to suffer alone—though not for long because he begins edging his way toward the kitchen for their escape.

“Jake, can you get the windows open?” Gina tugs her phone out of her back pocket, places it on the table and scrambles out of the van. “Throw the painting down.”

Jake takes a step forward, but looks back toward Amy, who’s still fussing with the forgery in the frame. “Amy.”

“Go, I’m right behind you.”

He rushes out to the window. He taps away at his phone to turn off the window’s alarm and cracks it open enough to slip the tube through. It falls mutely into the bushes fourteen feet below.

On the other side of the office door, two security guards head toward the office. They turn at the sound of heels approaching behind them and the taller one frowns. “Ma’am, you’re not supposed to be up here.”

Rosa flashes them a smirk. “Actually, I am.” And with that, she sends a swift punch to his throat and thrust the butt of her other palm to the other’s nose.

Amy’s setting the bookshelf back when there’s a thump against the office door and some pained shouts. Jake whirls around from the middle of the room as she cautiously heads over to the door. Ignoring his hissed discouragements, she opens it.

A bald man turns, blood streaked down his nose.

“Hi Bob,” Amy greets in what she hopes is a casual tone. A muffled thump from behind him and he tips forward. She yelps, jumping to the side as he falls face-first onto the floor.

Rosa stands where Bob used to be, breathing heavily. Under one foot is the other security guard, passed out on his back. “ _That’s_ what I do,” she growls, a note of smugness in her voice.

(She’s a little disappointed because it took her longer than usual to take down two guys. The heels weren’t the problem; she blames it on the weight and length of the gown.)

“We should hurry,” Jake says, nudging Amy forward. “Before the others figure out what’s happened.”

The three bustle toward the middle of the hallway and down the back staircase where Ray is standing on look out. Together, they slip out of the backdoor. They pass a startled waitress on her smoke break and Amy gives her a little wave before they disappear into the darkness.

Once back into the safety of their van with their hearts racing, Amy lets out a breath. “That was fun. We should—”

“This was a one time deal,” Rosa says, pulling on a pair of jeans she’d hazardously thrown into the corner along with her tank top and leather jacket.

Jake shrugs from his sprawled position on the floor. His cons almost never result in physical exertion. He is so out of shape. “I already forgot Santiago’s face.”

“I’m sitting _right here_.”

Ray turns from the driver’s seat, the engine rumbling and ready to go. “Where’s Gina?”

Amy peers out of the grimy window. “I thought she was up there with you.”

There’s a bad feeling in Rosa’s gut. As she scans the security feed, she catches a lipstick print in the corner of the screen.

Jake taps the comm in his ear. “Gina? You there?”

“Sorry I can’t be there to properly thank you for the _Four Dancers_ ,” Gina purrs in their ears, her voice aloof and unlike the pleasant way she’s interacted with them for the past week. “But I left a little surprise for you on the table.”

They all turn to the mess on Jake’s table.

Amy gasps.

It doesn’t look like much, especially amongst all the toys and tech gadgets, but the countdown— _0:17_ —on the screen of the phone let them know exactly what it is.

“Go, go, go!” Ray yells, throwing his door open.

_0:14_

Amy clambers over Jake as he attempts to scramble up. Rosa yanks him up by the back of his shirt and shoves him forward. He trips on the towbar on the bumper, but regains footing on the asphalt and races after Amy and Ray.

_0:09_

The four of them jump over fenced bushes that line the footpath and into the woods that surround the neighbourhood.

A deranged cackle fills their ears.

_0:04_

“ _Ciao_ , my lovelies. It’s been fun.”

 

> **Apartment Building in Manhattan - 1:12AM**

“I can’t believe she tried to kill us. I’m gonna _kill her_.”

Rosa stalks the length of the condo, her face—covered in dirt and grass stains—is set in a deeper-than-usual scowl, framed by hair even more unruly than earlier.

“That was so not dope,” Amy says from the couch, a bitter edge in her voice. She carefully taps the cut on her chin to check if it’s still bleeding. “She conned us. And didn’t even pay us.”

Rosa clenches her fist as she towers over her. “Why are you upset about _that_?”

“It’s not good manners.”

“You’re a _thief_.”

“Excuse me, I’m a Lady Thief. There’s a huge difference.”

Rosa grits her teeth and plants herself down on the other end of the couch, as far away from Amy as possible. “There’s something wrong with you.”

The condo in which they’re currently nursing their wounds is one of Jake’s safe houses in the city. It has large windows that looks out into the city on one wall, the city night casting a dim light into the kitchen and dining area. Further into the condo is the open living room, where Jake plops himself between the women and hands Amy the second bottle of orange soda. He takes a noisy slurp from his own and swallows with a dramatic, “Ah!”

Amy glares at him. “I blame you for this.”

“Me?!”

“You spent the most time with her, especially tonight—both of you horsing around in that foul-smelling van. You didn’t pick up on anything weird?”

“First of all”—he gets choked up—“don’t speak ill of the dead—Paulina smelled like hard work. And second, Gina’s a grifter; she _lies_ for a living! Besides, I am nothing if not professional, always.”

“Professional? You?” She pushes him back against the couch to speak to Rosa. “Two years ago we bumped into each other in the Louvre. Do you know what he did to distract the two guards that were close by? He could have tricked the motion sensors on the other end of the museum to go off or tripped the emergency exit alarms, but you know what he did?”

Rosa stares up at the ceiling through her lashes.

“He made _fart sounds_.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Jake says.

“You’re both idiots,” Rosa retorts.

Amy pouts.

Jake scratches the edge of the butterfly bandage at his temple.

Amy slaps his hand away. “Don’t touch it, you’ll just make it worse.”

“But it itches like crazy.”

“God, you are so—”

“Will you two shut the _fuck_ up?” Rosa shouts. “I’m getting a headache!”

Unbeknownst to the trio, Ray’s seated at the dining table with an intense look on his face as he stares unseeingly at the laptop screen. As soon as they’d crawled up to the condo, Ray had Jake hunting down any information on Gina Linetti that he could find while the rest of them tended to their injuries.

Turns out, she has a few aliases, and after some digging, Jake found her linked in some way to an array of art crimes from all over the world. It appears she has a proclivity for dance-themed art. Amy wondered why they didn’t pick up on Gina’s façade.

“Because you’re criminals,” Ray said, “you’re hardwired to automatically be suspicious of other criminals, but Gina pretended to be an innocent victim and you didn’t think to doubt her.”

“Then how come you didn’t either?” Jake asked, and winced as Amy applied disinfectant on his gash.

“Because I’m not a criminal.”

“You are now,” Rosa said.

“Here,” Jake says, nudging Ray from his trance. He holds out a plane ticket he’d bought from his phone and printed out. “Myanmar, Brazil, Luxembourg, Iceland. This city’s crawling with cops. We’ll scatter until this all blows over.”

“Don’t say blow,” Amy grumbles, adjusting the bottle against the bruise on her forearm.

“You’re running,” Ray states, almost mockingly. There’s a ghost of a smirk across his face. “She brought us together to do her dirty work, double-crossed us, and you’re just going to let it go.”

Amy studies him with a look of reservation on her face—and not for the first time in the past week. “Aren’t you a cop?”

“I vote midlife crisis,” Jake says with a chuckle, handing Rosa her ticket.

“What else are we supposed to do?” Rosa asks. “I don’t know where she is or where she’s going.”

Jake waves a hand. “I tapped into the city’s traffic cameras and I’m running her face through a facial recognition software I developed. If she tries to leave the city, we’ll know.”

“If we work together, we can find her.” Ray stands and joins them in the living area. “Peralta, are you in?”

Jake shrugs. “I was just gonna prank her, but this sounds way better.”

“Diaz?”

“This was supposed to be a one time deal, man. What’s in it for me?”

“Payback. And if it goes well, money.”

Rosa smirks and slouches in her seat.

Amy crosses her arms, straightening her spine. “And what’s in it for me?”

“Money,” Ray answers. “And if it goes well, payback.”

“What about you?” Jake asks. “Why are you so hell bent on getting her back?”

A dark look shadows Ray’s face, his eyes piercing. “She betrayed my trust.”

Jake takes a step back, brows high on his forehead.

A heavy silence falls upon them. The fridge buzzes. Sirens wail in the distance.

Amy swallows. “Gina knows us. She spent a week with us; she knows our moves, our tactics. _If_ we find her, how would we even con her?”

Ray pushes his fists into his pant pockets. “Tomorrow. We’ll get Terry.”

“Who the fuck is Terry?” Rosa mutters as Ray walks off.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback any time you read it, including:
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